Union Chief Urges Wealth Taxes Over Pension Reform to Fund Social Care

Scrapping the pensions triple lock would be "morally wrong", the general secretary of Unite has warned, as Andy Burnham prepares to deliver his first conference speech as prime minister. Sharon Graham urged him to look at wealth taxes rather than "pick the pocket of pensioners", intervening in a row that has gathered pace over how Labour's proposed social care reforms might be paid for.

Speaking to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Burnham said he wanted to use his address to set out his "vision" for an NHS-style social care system, free at the point of use. Speculation has since mounted about how such a system would be funded, with removing the triple lock floated among the options. Labour's deputy leader, Lucy Powell, moved to quell the talk on Tuesday, telling BBC Breakfast that the party remains committed to the policy set out in its 2024 manifesto.

The triple lock, in place for 16 years, guarantees that state pensions rise each April by at least 2.5%, or in line with whichever is higher of prices or earnings. Graham, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, said abandoning it risked repeating the unpopular removal of the Winter Fuel Allowance under Sir Keir Starmer. "Instead of going to try and pick the pocket of pensioners, we need to move over to the other side of the equation and think about things like wealth taxes way before we try to stop something like the triple lock," she said.

She went further, describing the prospect as a moral failing. "Going to a group of people who are getting around £12,500 a year in order to pay for it, to take away their security, is wrong — I think it's morally wrong," she said, pointing out that current pensions are the lowest among the G7 nations. Powell, asked whether the lock would remain until the next election, was unequivocal. "I can absolutely assure your viewers watching this that we are committed to the triple lock, it's in our manifesto," she said, adding that it was set to increase the value of the state pension by around £2,000 a year over this parliament — "significant uplifts", as she put it.

Burnham, for his part, has framed the debate around the broader inequity of the current system. He told the BBC that social care in England is "as unfair as American healthcare, where the most vulnerable in society can lose everything, they can be wiped out", and indicated that "nothing is off the table at this moment in time" on funding. Unlike the NHS, social care is not free at the point of use. In England and Northern Ireland, those with savings above £23,250 are not entitled to council help with care costs; Wales and Scotland operate different eligibility rules.

Alan Milburn, the former Labour minister now leading an independent review into young people and work, suggested Burnham was prepared for difficult choices. Asked on the BBC's Political Thinking podcast whether the social care plans could be funded by scrapping the triple lock, he replied that Burnham was "exactly the sort of person who can take the big decisions". He added: "Andy is absolutely right about this — the social care system is broken." Of the potential call, he said he had "no doubt" from every conversation he had had with the prime minister that it was one "he is prepared to make".

Burnham is also expected to announce a new government body to invest in Britain's electricity grid, to be branded Great British Grid, when he addresses conference later today.